SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- The concerns of “Joe the plumber,” also known as Samuel Wurzelbacher of Ohio, have come to represent the concerns of average Americans, or at least that's what one or even both of the major presidential campaigns has been proposing.
But some critics argues that “Joe” doesn’t truly represent the average American voter.
“I would say that he’s not wildly awesome, sort of an average American, but it sort of misrepresents what you might think of an average person because it suggests that there’s a big chunk of people that look like this guy and it over simplifies what the American population looks like,” said Jack Glaser, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
KCBS’ Melissa Culross reports
The true average American voter more likely would be female, as there are more women in this country than men and a higher percentage of eligible female voters go to the polls than the percentage of eligible men who actually vote.
Glaser says campaigns are very careful in choosing the “regular” people they put in front of the cameras. Wurzelbacher is Caucasian and a member of the majority race in America. His actual income, not the $250,000 it was assumed to be, is also closer to the national median.
“I think it’s fairly obvious that they try to get a representative for the people standing near the candidate on camera. They want more people to in the audience to identify with the candidate if they see someone like them standing there,” said Glaser.
Glaser calls Wurzelbacher more of an archetypal American voter, as the archetype of a white man as the average American is very strong.
(cfu)
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